Le RER B EXPLOSE AYAAA

It reminds of an even worse explosion.
The Lac Megantic Rail explosion. Freight trains pass daily a few yards away from the cafe. However the intensity of the sound indicated something was wrong with this train. Then 5 locomotives rush past at a staggering speed followed by a composition of 72 tank cars filled with crude oil grinding across the track and colliding against each other and then a powerful blast. It was on July 5th 2013. One hour before midnight, a freight train entered a station at Nantes with composition comprising 5 locomotives, 1 buffy car, a remote control car and 72 tank cars for 4 700 tons. It transported 2 160 000 gallons of crude oil from North Dakota to Irving Oil Refinery. Along its path there were 2 Canadian towns, Nantes and Lac Mégantic. Tom Harding, an experimented engineer, was operating the train. Harding parked the train on the main line. At the Nantes station another operator took over the following day. He was the only person on the train but followed the complete parking procedure. After applying the air BR system, he engaged handbrakes on all 5 locomotives, a buffer car and the first car. He then went through a brake test to check if the handbrakes alone were sufficient to hold the train. Harding also contacted hte US rail traffic control to report an engine malfunction and smoke coming from the lead locomotive Locomotiv was elft running to maintain the pressure in the air brake system. Eventually Harding called the local rail traffic controller Richard Labrie. Harding didn't realize that the engine's problem was more severe than he imagined. Some times after he left, witnesses reported sparks flying out of the exhaust. Flames came out. On 11 : 50 fire department received an emergency about a locomotive on fire.
After Montreal Maine and Atlantic took over the train everyone informed the firefighters that the train was safe. At 1 : 00 am as one of the firefighers returned home however, he stopped at the railway crossing not far from the Nantes station, seeing the same train he saved from fire passing the crossing at high speed. No headlights or horn sound. 1 : 15 am, the train approached Lac Megantic travelling at 100 km per horu. The train limit here was supposed to be 16 km per hour because of a long and sharp curve. The composition of 5 lovomotives and remote control car was did pass the curve but the buffer car couldn't whistand the force and derailed it draggign along the remaining 72 cars filled with crude oil. It caused a serie of massive explosions ripping through the town. The music cafe was the closest house to the train. A few guests survived by sheer luck. Without 900 meters, the blast destroeyd everything. Orange lit fireballs light up the night rising hundreds of feets in the air. But the explosion was only a prelude. Most of the derailed tanks captured ruptured during the explosion and started leaking oil, exactly over 1,5 million of gallons set on fire and spread to the streetsof lochmagantic The fire consumed everything. At 1 : 47, train operator Harding is evacuated from his hotel in Lac Megantic. He called Richard Labrie, the traffic controller Residents ran from their houses, running through smoke and flames to save their lives. Some people jumped from the floors of their homes. 150 firefighters were dispatched It however took a whole dayto reach the center of the fire.
The derailed tanks from which oil was still leaking. They succeeded in the late hours of Sunday, July 7th. Hospitals nearby expected many injuries. However over the 2 days of fire, only 1 resident came to treat his second degrees burns. The disaster left almost no room for injured people. Either you escape the fire either you were burned alive. 47 people were killed by the explosion in the blaze. 5 bodies were never found, probably vaporized by the explosion. Half of the town was destroyed. Due to oil contamination, the remaining houses had to be demolished. 1 000 people were left homeless for a while. 26 000 gallons of oil als leaked into the chaldier river in nearby lake. Tom Harding was unaware it was his train that caused the disaster. It took one hour to discover the truth. A taxi dispatched informed Richard that it was the train who caused this. As scheduled the tanker train operated by the Montreal Maine and Atlantic Railway arrived at the Nantes station. Harding secured the train, switching on the air brake system that locked all the wheels as a precautionary measure. He also applied hand brakes on all 5 locomotives plus 2 cars in case the brake system failed. However since the train was left on a slope, he was supposed to apply hand brakes on at least twice as many tank cars. He probably didn't do this because he was the only person on duty and applying a single brake was a 3 minutes long procedure that required a lot of strenght afterward, Harding performed a required brake test to ensure the train would be held by hand brakes alone.
Unfortunatly he accidentally left the air brakes on during the test which led him to believe the handbrakes would hold the train. In any case, Harding left the lead engine running to maintain the pressure in the air brake system with the air brakes applied, there was no chance the train moved and yet it did somehow. 8 months before the accident, the locomotive had been sent to a repair shop because of the engine failure. To save time, MMA's managers repaired the engine with a part of insufficient strenght and durability. The day of disaster, the low grade part failed allowing oil to leak into the body of the turbocharger. Since the engine was left running, the oil kept accumulating and once it overheated it set the whole engine on fire. Firefighters reacted quickly and prevented the fire to spread. However to extinguish it they had to kill the engine by turning the engine off. They cut the air brake system 's air supply. Unfortunatly, track MMA maintenance employees sent to the scene were not trained operators and were unaware of the consequences of leaving a locomotive engine turned off. If operator Harding had been present he would probably have started the engine again, but his colleague assured him he wouldn't have to make the trip. After the fire being extinguished, the firefighters and the MMA's employees left the scene, convinced that everything was in order. In fact, without the engines running, the air brake system gradually lost all pressure. As a result, the train was lying on slope tracks on hand brakes. A standard measure on most railways system was to park the train on side tracks equipped with buffer stops. The MMA's guidelines allowed parking on main tracks. So, with no sufficient brakes the train carrying more than 2 million gallons of oil moved down the tracks. The tracks from Nantes to Mac Megantic was dropping 4 feet each 100 yards.
By the time it reached the curve of Lac Megantic, the train was way too fast. The disaster overall resulted from poor management systems and inadequate regulations. That's what the Federal Transportation Safety board and its 181 pages report concluded. MMA however turned the blame on its own people, Tom Hardy, Richard Labrie and Jean Demaitre, the railway traffic controller and the manager of train operations. They were arrested in 2014. Harding was accused of not applying enough hand brakes and and of parking the train on a slope. Labrie was blamed for improper inspection of the train after it caught fire. While Demaitre was accused of failing to secure the train properly. The defense based their case on claiming the accused had no proper safety training and everything they did on the night of tragedy was according to the company's regulations. The 3 were specagoats. But the residents didn't feel like it. They believed the railway's managers should have sat on the bench instead. They begged to move the tracks and the transport of hazardous cargo further from the town. But the project was too expensive. Ultimatly all the 3 accused were relieved from charges. The MMA and the Canadian Pacific Railway as the main contractors got away with it. In August 2013 the company filed for bankruptcy corruption both in Canada and USA as it lacked the assets or insurance to compensate disaster victims. Other companies sued in action lawsuit agreed to pay money into a settlement fund for victims in exchange of being moved from the case, ultimatly they paid 450 million dollars to victims and other creditors. The Canadian and USA federal authorities responded to the disaster by announcing a serie of security measures including new safety standards for cars, speed limit in ubran areas and required electronic braking systems. After a decade, the railways still refuse to implement the standards that collide with their economic interests. In the meantime, the city was rebuilt.